The fifth and final season of Stranger Things will (almost definitely) come out this year on Netflix, probably later in the year. The show has gotten more ambitious as it's gone on, to the point where the season 4 finale ran as long as a lengthy movie: 2 hours and 19 minutes. Even in an age when the line between TV and movies has been blurring, that's pushing things.
And it sounds like we're in for more of that in the upcoming fifth season, if star Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler) can be believed. "It’s definitely a long season," he told Collider. "Not every episode is like a full-blown movie, but there are definitely some episodes this year that the runtime is definitely film-length. When all that adds up, I guess they are like little micro-movies. But there are some episodes that are still 40 minutes, 45 mins."
So he's not coming out and saying that we'll have more episodes that clear two hours, but I think it's a good bet. "To end a show that people have been watching for a long time, you want every character to have the best kind of ending," Wolfhard continued. "And in order to do that, you have to take the time to do that."
Speaking at a Stranger Things preview event last week, creators Ross and Matt Duffer concurred that the final season will be a whopper. "We spent a full year filming this season," Ross told a crowd of fans, per Entertainment Weekly. "By the end, we had captured over 650 hours of footage. So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It's like eight blockbuster movies. It's pretty, pretty insane."
Matt Duffer chimed in that the season will "be intense from beginning to end," although both brothers sound like they also want to keep things intimate. "At the same [time], we think it's — or hope it's — our most personal story," Matt continued. "It was super intense and emotional to film — for us and for our actors we've been with for so long. And we've been making it together for almost 10 years now. There was a lot of crying. There was so much crying. The show means so much to all of us, and everyone put their hearts and souls into it. And we hope — and believe — that passion is going to translate to the screen."
When last we left our group of small town heroes, they were looking on as interdimensional menace Vecna punched a hole through reality, allowing the twisted Upside Down dimension to leak into the small town of Hawkins, IN. They have a big job ahead of them, but at least they're all together after spending most of season 4 apart. “It’s also going to feel familiar," Ross said of the final episodes. "This season is the biggest it’s ever been in scale, but everyone’s back together in Hawkins, interacting the same way they were in season 1.”
The final season of Stranger Things will have eight episodes in total, one more than season 4. Expect to see it towards the end of 2025. Between this and Squid Game, Netflix is closing out two of its most popular series this year. Hopefully they knock both out of the park and gives fans reason to be excited. The crazy episode lengths are extreme, but for a show as important as Stranger Things, the Duffers can probably get away with them in the final season.
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